DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum 2010 Cleveland Indians: And you thought your team sucked

i don't think cuban will ever own an mlb team... the cubs thing didn't work.

i think he'd be great for the sport and a blessing to a team like the indians, reds, pirates, or anyone else who can't compete year to year...

but he's gotta get owners' majority vote, it's gotta get through the commissioner. and i think the guy is too much of a lightning rod to have all that fall his way.

the cubs were a prime choice of his, and that didn't work, so i don't think he will ever get in.

He also let Steve Nash walk ... what a CHEAPSKATE!!!

Just a few general replies based on what I've read here....
1. Everyone needs to keep in mind that the trade of V-Mart was made easier because we have Carlos Santana, who from all accounts will be a superior player to him anyway. I hated to see Victor go, but we would be stuck now in the position of trying to come close to that ridiculous contract Mauer signed when Victor would be a free agent. There is no way he is worth anywhere near that type of money. Martinez has never been close to MVP and that is what Mauer is. Let's all wait until we see what Santana does before we condemn this move.

2. I place a lot of the blame at Shipiros feet. He has been in charge of the horrible drafts that have produced NOTHING for us at the MLB level thus far. Sabathia was the last prospect that WE drafted that turned into anything. That trend may change with some of the youngsters we have coming up, but I'll reserve judgement until they prove that to be the case.

3. He was also in charge of the free agency periods that netted us NOTHING, and I am aware that he was limited by Dolan, but really we had no chance on half of these guys anyway with Bos, NYY and LA out there giving Monopoly money contracts. Whether that be our homegrown talent, or any of the FA out there for the taking that is the case. Belle is/was the last generations CC/Lee as they made no bones about testing free agency. Thome is another matter altogether, as he LIED to us as fans claiming that they'd have to tear his jersey off him before he left to sign somewhere else. As a matter of fact, those very same scars from losing Thome with no compensation at the end of the year, when they could have netted something at the trade deadline is why our Front Office probably acts as they do toward our pending FAs. They bought into his home spun rhetoric and lies about how he'd give them a hometown discount and then bolted to Philly for more money and claimed it was because they were going to give him one more year. Read Terry Pluto's book and you'll see that the Indians deal was going to be much more beneficial to Thome had he stayed, as he could have retired with dignity with the Indians and become a hometown hero and stayed as a figurehead FO type instead of becoming the sorry soldier of fortune that he is now.

4. Attendance has everthing to do with how the team is run, and Dolan bears the brunt of a lot of this, as he should, but I find it funny that the very same people decrying what is going on now are saying stupid BS like, "I'm not going out to the stadium until they prove they want to win", or "Dolan sucks and I will speak through my lack of attendance!". Great way to play both sides of the fence. You give them no quarter, then you better ask no quarter. I better not run into any of you in the near future when they are competing, as that is the height of hypocrisy. How can YOU ask an owner to ciommit, when you yourself do not? And don't give some BS excuse like, "I used to go down there in the 90's!" or "I was there in the playoff run of '07." Real fans don't use that kind of rhetoric. EVERYONE was there then!!! Where were you when the team took a downturn at the turn of the century? What about in '05 when we were chasing the Sox? Like it or not, you have to give and take. Commitment to winning takes two, owners and fans, and a flow of money both ways.

5. I do not like the way we handle prospects. AT ALL!! Case in point the glut of OFs we have/had, Carlos Santana and The Adam Miller fiasco. Starting with the OFs, we had at one point Francisco, Gutierrez, Sizemore, Crowe, Brantley, Choo, and Crisp. With all of that talent, teams were asking at the deadline at some point in years past and probably will continue to. We kept the majority of these players during the season instead of trading them to acquire more talent to make that late season push. I realize that we have traded away a few of these guys, and gotten good talent in return, but we did so after the season, and God knows where we would have gone if we had traded them away for a bigger bat or a pitcher to plug a hole in the stretch run. As for Santana, there is no reason for him to be in the minors at any point this year. We traded Shoppach, brought in Redmon and have Merloni(?), but EVERYONE knows that Santana is the future, so why not let him play??? Finally, the Adam Miller situation is a sticking point for me. A few years back when he had a hot spring, Shap sent him down to the minors to start the season. Teams were inquiring about him all year, especially at the trade deadline, and Shap did not pull the trigger. I may get flamed on this point, but the kid had an extensive injury history and with that in mind, he should have been dealt for the prospects that were being offered. There were a lot of teams with interest in him throughout that year and into the following offseason, and instead, Shap says no, the kid gets hurt, AGAIN, the next spring and never recovered. Dumb luck, sure, but reading the tea leaves would have been helpful there.

6. Competition for the dollar and the downturn in the economy hurt more than any of else knows or would like to admit. With the Cavs in the spring and the Browns in the fall, the Tribe has a lot of competition for the consumer dollar that they simply can't match right now. Also factor in that many of us decide to forgo a game in the summer that we may have attended in the past to save a few bucks and it all adds up. The money is not plentiful here in C Town right now and that is a fact of life that has more to do with a lot of this than we may think on the surface level.

7. The honeymoon period for the Jake (which it will always be to me) is over. It is still my favorite ball park in MLB, but the reality is that we are now in the cycle of stadium lifespan. In todays era of new ball parks and the revenue that that generates, we will probably not see another new stadium in our lifetimes. As more and more new ballparks open, the teams that opened them earlier will get shuffled back to the pack, except for the big market teams like NY, Bos, Chi and LA. Remember when Arlington Park and Camden opened and they were the toast of MLB, then the Jake came around? Now lately it's New NYY Stadium and the Minny park, and the increased revenue and awe factor that a new ballpark brings. Think of it as gravity, what goes up, must come down.

I realize this is a lengthy tirade and the majority of you probably skipped over it. I am not a Dolan supporter or basher. I love baseball far too much to do either consistently. I get mad and angry about a lot of the crap that goes on, but then I place it in the proper context and realize that is MLB circa 2010. It is not my father or my father's fathers game anymore. The player, owners and fans all have a hand in that. Until the owners do not blink and get a grip on the Union, this is the game that we will continue to see and the big market clubs will poach the talent and the cycles such as we see with the Tribe will be the way of life for the small to mid market teams.

i mean, really, what if a restaurant took that stance?

yeah, our food is horrible, but if you guys keep coming and paying for meals, they'll get better!

good luck with that.

and i'm really tired of this whole, you're not a real fan if you don't show up and pay your hard earned money either, doesn't work like that.

there is such a thing as being a fan, and following the team through television, internet, etc..

i attended very few cavs games between the time that the price days were over and the lebron era started. why? because going to a game is expensive, didn't mean that i wasn't any less of a fan, i followed them on television, i followed them in the newspapers.

it's called being a consumer.

and the browns were really starting to feel it too, barely selling out games, lucky for them they played strong at the end of the year and were able to cover.

Come on GM. People say that Dan Gilbert only spends because he has Lebron. Randy Lerner spends millions more than he has to. Why is Dolan able to cry attendance when Randy Lerner had to deal with the same problem last year but did something about it?

Lerner and Gilbert were still making tons of money, so it's easy to spend 50 percent more when your making 100 percent more.

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my owner is willing to keep his good players on my team.

The indians don't do that at all, and seemed to stop when Jacobs sold the team

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Glad im not the only one who thinks that.

i don't look at total payroll as much as i look at trading cy young award winners in consecutive years after you told the media and public you wanted to build around pitching.

dolan = fail

Okay ... like I said before ... what would YOU have done? Sign CC and Lee to the $20+ million contracts they would of commanded, and watch us continue to miss out of the playoffs, and bring in a whopping 25,000 a year?

we're gonna sell off all our good players, because we're cheap, and we're gonna get teams prospects (but not their best prospects) and then what we're gonna do is let those guys develop, some of them may turn out to be very good players, and guess what, when those guys deserve to get paid, we're gonna trade them off for more prospects!

it's the circle of crap!

cue elton john.

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as opposed to selling off your entire team and doing the same thing?

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Except you are not shelling out 40 million a year.....

yes, i understand that seattle spent money (although they might actually be pretty solid this year, and i totally credit that franchise for trying their absolute best to put a great product on the field) and it hasn't worked, but that doesn't mean the same applies to all teams.

how about the detroit tigers? they have been competitve more years than not. and while they are not as small as cleveland, they definitely are nowhere near the size of a market that new york or boston is.

but guess what? mike illich is a tremendous owner and person. that guy cares about winning. that guy wants fans to be proud.

Dolan bought the team at the end of '99, btw.

i bet even if baseball did institute some kind of hard cap, or at least somewhat of a floor, that dolan would still go 10-15m under.

you'll never see a world series with this ownership. never. not going to happen.

it's bad enough that fat bloated markets win the world series 8 or 9 times out of 10, but on top of it, larry dolan doesn't want to make sure that when these young guys are ready, that he's going to put the chips out on the table and make sure whoever is managing the team has the proper resources to win it all.

they want to do it with strictly homegrown talent. they don't want to use that money, that you mention, to buy the extra talent and depth that you need to battle with boston or new york. they don't want to do it.

and while you argue there haven't been those players in free agency the last few years, don't even try and tell me that there weren't trades that could have been made to acquire those types of players.

larry dolan = fail, just like his brother who runs one of the worst franchises in professional sports.

i have no problem with the trend of selling off your players and bringing in young guys, if you're gonna go out and add pieces to make it a true contender. we don't do that, and i don't ever see this organization doing it.

it's a absolute joke, and the slap to the face of cleveland fans.

i put up enough with watching the browns fail on an even playing field with an owner who will spend whatever money necessary to win.

sorry, yes I know that, no idea why I put 2001 for whatever reason.

Here is the extra year (it was after the '99 season when he bought them):

2000 Cleveland Indians American League 90 72 .556 5.0 3,456,278

you keep talking about the payroll, but where were these supposed moves you talk about, to go along with our young guys coming up. you keep talking about bringing in young guys, and then when you're ready, you use the money you didn't on guys like lee and cc and victor, to bring in the players

where were those moves? delluci? trot nixon? kerry wood?